The Book of Deuteronomy—’The Second Law’ — is a code of civil and religious laws inserted into a great discourse attributed to Moses. The passage read today in our First Reading, immediately follows the recalling of the Ten Commandments God gave on the mountain. We have here an urgent exhortation that is still pertinent because of what is said about the meaning of God’s commandments and about the spirit in which we must receive and observe them.
Faithfulness to commandments is the daily expression of what the Bible calls ‘the fear of God.’ This phrase designates a feeling and an attitude with many components. We can attribute this fear to the sacred fright aroused in us by various manifestations of God’s infinite grandeur and power and by our feelings of smallness and nothingness. But this instinctive fear is blended with trust and translated in adoration. It is akin to reverence, not that of a slave but of a child showing a deep and affectionate respect toward venerated parents. Finally, the fear of God embraces the whole of religion in spirit and truth. It is a gift of the Spirit, bestowed in its fullness on the Messiah. As a consequence, those in whom this ‘fear of God’ dwells, consider none of his commandments negligible, since they express God’s will here and now, what pleases Him, and what is good for us to do.
God did not give the Commandments to humanity to impress it with His power and keep it in bondage. On the contrary, He promulgated them in the framework of a covenant, a pact of friendship proposed on His initiative, and based on mutual trust between partners. To those who accept this privileged relationship and express their daily assent to this covenant, God committed Himself to give His best gifts, expressed here by the promise of a ‘long life.’ The people steady in their faithfulness to the commandments will ‘grow and prosper…..[in] a land flowing with milk and honey.’ This way of speaking evokes the agricultural prosperity of a land in which the living is good. This does not mean that faithfulness to God’s commands preserves us from everything that may bring pain and bereavement. But whatever they may be, unhappy events do not lessen the deep peace—the happiness—of those who live in faithfulness to God’s covenant. Is this not the case when, under duress, we can rely on the closeness of faithful, thoughtful, and understanding friends?
In fact, it is love that is involved in our relation to God. ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.’ This text is the origin of the beautiful prayer of ‘Shema Israel’ — ‘Hear O Israel!’ — that every pious Jew recites morning and evening; it is at once a profession of faith in the One God, a renewal of the commitment to the covenant, and a thanksgiving. Those who ‘fear’ God ‘listen’ to what he says and learn to love him. Christian spiritual tradition has preserved this teaching: through obedience to the commandments, one passes from fear to love.
‘Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.’
In order to remain engraved in the memory of your heart, these commandments will be learned by heart. The injunction to memorize is frequent in Deuteronomy. This is not a method of teaching befitting only an oral civilization. Today as yesterday, we interiorize what we frequently ponder, and what has thus entered the heart springs up spontaneously to be translated into action. This word ‘is very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.’ (Deut 30:14)
Our Gospel Reading for this Thirty-First Sunday echoes that of Deuteronomy. It comes in the form of a question posed to Jesus by a scribe, who asks him what is the first of the commandments. His answer reminds his questioner of the ‘Shema’ the beautiful prayer spoken about so eloquently in our First Reading.
Whereas others came to put tricky questions to Jesus, a scribe who has heard the discussions which have been taking place with Jesus and others approaches him and asks without guile, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ The serene climate of this encounter, as related in Mark’s Gospel, invites us to candidly enter the dialogue between Jesus and the scribe—as a child who hears again and again with renewed wonder an often-told story.
To ask the question of ‘the first of all the commandments’—and who does not ask this question?— does not necessarily denote a mind bent on casuistry. Such a one seeks only to set up a hierarchy among duties, to determine principles of jurisprudence in order to appraise the relative importance of each duty and to discharge it at minimum cost: one will have to attend to what is more serious, and the rest will be treated with less attention, less scrupulously. The ‘first’ commandment is that which is absolutely capital, which is binding on all, always; that to which all others are subjected without being canceled or considered more or less optional. In this sense, the First Commandment is not determined by a list. On the contrary, it is the source of all the other commandments, even those not listed. It is this First Commandment that, in a novel situation— not foreseen by a code of law— will dictate or inspire suitable concrete behaviour. Therefore, it is very important—even vital— to know what commandment comes first. The scribe of the Gospel is right to put this question to Jesus. No-one can answer like him or with equal authority.
Jesus does not answer in a way a lawyer might make reference to a code of laws, but he recites the opening words of the best-known prayer—The Shema— which pious Jews know by heart. It is a verbatim quote from the text of Deuteronomy that represents a progress and a deepening of faith in God. The Ten Commandments said: ‘I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not calve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For, I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God…..’ (Exod 20:2-5) Experience and reflection progressively led to an understanding of God’s unparalleled grandeur in a much stricter and more absolute sense. Not only is he above all others who claim to be or are considered gods. He is the only God. His name is ‘The One.’ (This is not a mere nuance. To call God ‘The One’ is to profess a strict monotheism. When capitalized, ‘One’ is no longer an adjective, but a proper name befitting God alone.) This name became progressively dominant. The experience of the Exile played an important role in this by leading the exiles to the realisation that other so-called gods were nothing. The Lord had bonded with his people, has concluded a covenant with them through a free choice ‘because [he] loved’ the people. The choice and this covenant created a bond comparable to the conjugal bond, reciprocal, unfailing, exclusive, and total love,‘with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.’
Jesus adds, ‘The second is this: ‘You Shall love your neighbour as yourself.’’ Again, we are referred to the Law. The notion of neighbour, it is true, has undergone an evolution. First, ‘neighbour’ meant those who belonged to the people of God and the aliens residing in the land, who were placed on the same footing which demonstrated an already noticeably high conception of relationship to others and what its practice entailed.
Bringing the Law to fulfilment, Jesus further enlarged this notion of neighbour: every
human being without distinction.
From the beginning, the duty to love one’s neighbour derives from the bond that God established with them. Therefore, it is understandable that the extension of the notion of neighbour was parallel to the revelation and realisation of the universality of salvation. This extended notion presupposes that all human beings have an equal dignity, whatever their race, religion, or culture. ‘And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself’ is worth more than burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ When one professes this faith and practices it, one is ‘not far from the kingdom of God.’ This assurance given here by Jesus has its concrete confirmation in Matthew’s judgement scene. On that day the Lord will recognise those ‘blessed by [his] Father’ and take with him all who have truly treated others as neighbours.
To love all human beings, even enemies, is to behave as ‘children of [our] heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.’ To act in this way is to be ‘perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect.’ Is this ideal above our strength? Certainly, but, in the same way it is impossible for humans to save themselves ‘all things are possible for God’ if we ask through Jesus Christ, His Son, our High Priest who intercedes for us.
‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.’
